Thursday, 13 August 2009

The Happy Chef

Yesterday I showed you a closeup of a partitioned box full of wooden clothes pegs, with numbers and colour coding on them.

This is the system used by the Happy Chef food outlet at the Sussex Centre food court in Chinatown. Nothing is written down, and there is never a mistake made.

Customers chose from the illuminated, numbered dishes in the pictures. Then you also choose which of four kinds of noodles you want - egg or rice, thick or thin.

The appropriate peg is placed inside the servery hatch for the cooks to read - it indicates which number dish and which kind of noodles. On occasions I have ordered a variation on the preset numbers, and that has been coped with admirably by use of a combination of pegs!

I'm not exactly sure how it works, and I did try to find out more, but communication lapsed over some of the more technical details! I did find out it had been invented by someone to do with the outlet, and it's inisputably ingenious!

That's my soup - wonton noodle soup with scallops and king prawns being placed on the tray, and so it's time to go and find a table....